Yeddyurappa arrested for corruption, sent to jail

Bangalore, Oct 15 (IANS) Former Karnataka chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa was jailed Saturday for corruption.

Yeddyurappa, the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) first chief minister in south India, surrendered before a trial court in two cases of corruption after his bail plea was rejected and the court ordered his arrest.

He has been sent to jail till Oct 22.

Bookanakere Siddalingappa Yeddyurappa, 68, was taken to Bangalore's main jail at Prappana Agrahara in the eastern suburbs and will have the company of his former ministerial colleagues Katta Subramanaya Naidu and S.N. Krishnaiah Shetty.

Yeddyurappa was taken into custody by the police afer he surrendered before Lokayukta special court judge N.K. Sudhindra Rao who earlier rejected his bail plea in two graft cases and issued anarrest warrant.

Shetty was also arrested as his bail plea in the two cases was rejected.

Yeddyuappa was not present in the court when his bail plea was rejected. He had sent a medical certificate saying he was suffering from back pain and only later arrived to surrender.

Shetty collapsed in the court hall and burst into tears as Rao rejected the bail plea and ordered his arrest. He was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment.

Katta Subramanya Naidu was jailed Aug 8, along with his son Katta Jagadish, a Bangalore corporator, for taking a kickback of Rs.85 crore to allot 385 acres of land on Bangalore outskirts to a software firm.

Yeddyurappa's another ministerial colleague mining baron G. Janardhana Reddy is also in jail - in Hyderabad - for illegal mining in Andhra Pradesh.

However Yeddyurappa's two sons -- BJP Lok Sabha member B.Y. Raghavendra and B.Y. Vijayendra -- and son-in-law R. Sohan Kumar were granted conditional bail. The three were also accused in the cases.

Yeddyurappa is the first accused in two cases of illegal land denotification for monetary gains.

The cases were filed by two Bangalore advocates Sirajin Bhasha and N.K. Balaraj in January this year after Governor H.R. Bhardwaj gave them sanction to launch criminal proceedings against Yeddyurappa and his kin for conspiring to denotify lands in and around Bangalore in return for monetary gains.

Yeddyurappa quit July 31 after the then Lokayukta (ombudsman) N. Santosh Hegde recommended his trial for graft in illegal land mining scam.